The Canon of John Lydgate Project

The Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund: Introduction

William Curteys, Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds
William Curteys, brother of Bury St. Edmunds; cellarer, 1417-1426; prior, 1426-1429; abbot, 1429-1446.

Even when cellarer, Curteys was a great one for organization and record
keeping, and when he became abbot he required similar efforts of his
subordinates. The registers of his period as abbot are extant: see British
Library MSS Addit. 14848 (Part 1) and Addit. 7096 (Part 2). Curteys was also
very concerned, not least because of repeated challenges by the Bishop of
Norwich, to maintain the Abbey's ancient privileges, including its freedom
from control by the bishop; he ordered and updated the abbey's records of its
ancient charters, and commissioned Lydgate to produce an English translation
of some of the principal charters (the "Cartae versificatae" printed by
Arnold, Memorials
3: 215-237).

The period of Curteys's abbacy is also a significant one for building projects
in the monastery. One significant project was the repair of the towers and
west front of the church, parts of which had collapsed in two incidents in
1430. Also in 1430 Curteys built the Abbey's first library, perhaps above the
cloister but the exact location is not certain; this was the first attempt to
bring all of the Abbey's books and records together in one location, and the
library was built to house some 2000 books (see
M. R. James; also the
Victoria County History article
on Bury, p. 71). Curteys then went on to build up the library collection
with a program of manuscript production, which may, in part, have been the
origins of the "Lydgate factory" and the
"Bury style" of manuscript.

Heale describes the period of Curteys's abbacy as a period of reform,
of renewed discipline and spirtuality, at Bury, which contradicts popular
conceptions of the laxity of late medieval monasteries. There seems to have
been something of a local reform movement in which are prominent the names of
Abbot Curteys, of John Lydgate, and Henry Kirkstede ("Boston of Bury":
sometime librarian of the monastery and master of the novices, who is probably
the compiler of MS Bodley 240, a collection of materials, including Latin
lives of St. Edmund, for use in the training of novitiate).

Part 1 of Abbot Curteys's Register includes a full description of the visit by
Henry VI in 1433-1434 which was the occasion of Lydgate's translation of the
Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund ("De adventu regis Henrici VI ad
monasterium de Sancto Edmundo 1433"; in London, British Library, MS Addit.
14848, ff. 128r-128v; the Latin text was printed by
Ord).

Goodwin, in his short book describing The Abbey of St.
Edmundsbury, offers a description of the Curteys's character: "William
Curteys, who guided the abbey's destinies from 1429 to 1446, is described by
his contemporaries as a perfect paragon of virtue and versatility. There
seemed no limit to the breadth of his interests or the range of his
activities. A keen collector of books, an enthusiastic builder and an able
administer, he adorned everything he touched. His long business experience
did not, as in the case of Abbot Samson, blunt his appreciation of the gentler
virtues. His piety, integrity and moral earnestness were respected throughout
the country [Goodwin cites Arnold's Memorials, 3: 264]. His very
saintliness was the more esteemed in that it was leavened with intolerance,
for he was a well known persecutor of the Lollards. A strict disciplinarian
with a passion for order, he was appointed visitor in 1431 of all the
Benedictine houses in East Anglia [Memorials of Old Suffolk, p.
96]" (Goodwin p. 68; Curteys's position as Benedictine visitor is also mentioned in the
Victoria County History article
on Bury, p. 71). Thomas Arnold gives a similar account of
the abbot's character
in the Introduction to vol. 3 of his Memorials of St. Edmund's
Abbey.